Project activity Energy Resources Assessment

The Energy Resources Assessment work is evaluating the prospectivity of energy resources in central Australia, namely the Pedirka and western Eromanga basins.  

The Pedirka and Eromanga basins were selected due to their underexplored status and their proximity to oil and gas infrastructure in the Cooper and Amadeus basins. 

These basins were assessed by applying an industry standard workflow that builds on exploration concepts (‘plays’) that describe the presence and effectiveness of reservoir and seal lithologies. Using this workflow, sedimentary sequences are screened for potential hydrocarbons and their suitability to store carbon dioxide (CO₂). The assessment component of the work is supported by the results of 3,750 line km of reprocessed legacy 2D seismic data, which provide new insights into the regional extent of mappable sedimentary sequences and their tectonic overprint. 

The results to date indicate a limited prospectivity of conventional hydrocarbons in the Pedirka Basin and prominent prospectivity for carbon dioxide storage in the shallower Eromanga Basin. Furthermore, stratigraphic correlations have clarified the role of unconformities for the delineation of basin boundaries. The work will improve our understanding of potential areas for future energy resource developments based on the relative prospectivity assessment of resource commodities. It will also establish a template for future resource assessments of data-poor, underexplored sedimentary basins.  

This work is part of the Exploring for the Future Australia’s Future Energy Resources project. 

What are we doing? 

Key steps in this work include:  

• a gap analysis to identify geological uncertainties and data deficiencies in the areas of interest 
• undertaking basin studies underpinned by reprocessing of selected seismic lines to help address current knowledge and data gaps
• well failure analysis to assess the significance of previous exploration drilling results for future exploration of hydrocarbon resources and carbon dioxide geological storage opportunities 
• mapping and analysing the optimal sections for major reservoirs-seal intervals within key chronostratigraphic units 
• developing a new workflow for assessing unconventional petroleum resources and CO₂ geological storage opportunities based on delineating optimal locations, where either production or injection and storage can be carried out effectively
• producing basin-scale prospectivity maps highlighting areas for potential future conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon resource exploration and carbon dioxide geological storage opportunities.  
   

Benefits 

The Energy Resources Assessment work will provide guidance for possible future investment in resource development through an improved understanding of the energy resource availability in the underexplored regions of the Pedirka and western Eromanga basins. It will produce spatially enabled assessments, highlighting the relative prospectivity and areas of interest for potential future exploration, including assessments relating to conventional and unconventional petroleum resources, CO₂ geological storage and green hydrogen projects.  Assessing both energy resources and carbon dioxide abatement opportunities provides a stimulus for projects targeting net-zero emissions.